Sorry Dr. Phelps

Aug 7, 2017

First of all, I understand that recording this on paper is I’ll-advised. It’s better if it all just goes away, erased from existence, erased from my mind…ahh the bliss. If only I hadn’t gone to the store that night, if only I had a little bit of will power, I wouldn’t be here right now. But here I am, at 3 a.m. unable to sleep for the fourth night in a row. 

I think I’m going to rip these pages out and burn them in a few days, it’ll just be nice to get this off my chest, out in the world so I’m not stuck with it in my head. Dr. Phelps would be proud! I’m finally using a journal (old college note book with a good 30 unused pages), he’s been on my ass about starting one. Congrats Phelps, this better work. 

So, I guess I’ll start with my pathetic craving for a bottle of wine a few nights ago. I had gone a week without it and I was actually excited to go have dinner at my parents' house. An alcohol-less dinner, they would be proud. Until Friday morning when Dad had to get a surprise root canal, “it’ll be soup and smoothies for dinner, and he’ll be fussing all night so it’s best that we just shoot for next Friday” my mom’s words. Yeah I’d rather stay at home anyways….alone….bored…I wanted some wine. So, shocker, I headed to the liquor store. 

On my way there I passed by the alley right next to Vine Street and wouldn’t have even looked that way if I hadn’t heard a little squeal. I turned and saw two people. I thought they were a couple making out at first so I quickly looked away to give them their privacy. But then I heard a few grunts that sounded less romantic. I stopped and stepped closer to get a better look.

Should I have kept walking? I knew something was wrong before I even stopped, I could feel it, but I was willing to ignore it and keep walking until the noises made me stop. Would I be sleeping softly if I had minded my own business and kept to myself? Thinking about it now, if I had ignored that pit in my stomach and walked away, I’d be lying awake worrying about what I should have done, rather than what happened. I can’t win. 

Anyways, I stepped closer, hoping it was just a couple that had less concerns about PDA than the average person; but no, it was a man and a younger woman fighting…or wrestling—her wrestling him off of her. The man had the woman pinned against the wall, I couldn’t see his face because it was nuzzled in her neck under her hair, but I could see hers. Her head was aggressively tilted sideways to make room for the man’s face on her neck, her eyes were wide open in shock and her mouth was still screaming, but no sound was coming out. I didn’t get too close to the two, I was still far away enough to make a good break for it if I needed to, but I was close enough to see the woman’s eyes. Her eyes were rolled up as if praying to some god hovering just above her forehead, but I don’t think she was looking at anything in particular, her eyes were unseeing. Suddenly though, they snapped into life and her pupils zeroed in on me. At the same time, the man pulled himself from the woman’s neck and turned to me, growling…GROWLING. By then I was turning to sprint away for help, but his face is already etched into my head. His skin was waxy, almost pushed to his face like clay. His dark hair was wild and greasy, it hung, matted and tangled on his shoulders. His eyes were like black holes in his head, no street lights glistened off of them the way they did the woman’s. It was as if they contained a muted, deep black fog within them. His sharp teeth were extended and bared, longer and sharper than any human teeth I’ve ever seen. Blood was smeared all across his mouth and chin, dribbling down his neck; his teeth were covered in it. I backed up, tried to scream but fear blocked it from leaving my lungs. I sprinted away as fast as I could.

Now, this all happened in a matter of about 5 seconds, from me stopping and seeing them to me bolting away to the liquor store for cover, but it’s been enough to seriously mess me up. I told the cashier in the liquor store about what happened in the alley a block away. I called 911 as we ran back to the pair in the alleyway, but they were gone. Of course they were gone. 

Anyways, the cops showed up and I gave them a description of the two, they told me I’d probably be fine, the perpetrator didn’t know enough about me to try to track me down or anything, and they let me go home…not without buying bottle of wine or two of course. I drank a couple of glasses, hoping the wine would overpower the image of the man that was stuck in my head.

So it was like that the past few nights…me just trying to calm my nerves enough to fall asleep. But last night and tonight, I have this paranoia. My empty apartment doesn’t feel so empty anymore, if that makes sense. I can’t help but feel like that guy followed me or found me somehow? But worse, I can’t help but feel like he’s here, in my apartment with me. 

Aug 9 2017

Day 6 of crappy —if you could call it sleep at all—sleep. This paranoia has turned to a full-body nervousness. I feel shaky and nervous all the time now. My apartment, with all of its windows and quiet shade, has become ominous and sinister even in the daytime. The silence terrifies me. I feel like I’m constantly waiting to feel a quick breath on my shoulder, so I can whirl around and see him standing there in my living room. Or maybe he’s hiding behind the fridge or the couch, waiting until I finally calm down and get comfortable, only he second I sit down and let my muscles relax, he’ll burst out of the corner screaming and lunging at my neck. 

Although my apartment seems less trustworthy nowadays, I’m too scared to leave the place as well. What if he sees me? What if he does follow me home this time? What do I do? 

I’ve been drinking. I figure if he’s gonna get me, I might as well be passed out in my bed. Easier for him, easier for me. Less of a struggle, and I don’t wanna feel any pain when he cuts me open.

Aug 10 2017

He was here. I swear to God I saw him in my room. Or maybe I’m thinking about him so much he’s haunting my dreams. I used to get night terrors as a kid. I’d see these aliens climb in my window every night with glowing fingertips and bulbous eyes, ready to “probe” me, whatever that meant in my 7 year old mind. This was different though, it was less of what I saw and more how I felt. Although I did see him; or a whisper of him in the corner of my room next to my bathroom door. It was so dark I couldn’t see any definitive outline of him, but I felt him there. I felt this cold suction that wasn’t physically moving anything, but it was sucking, or draining I guess, the atmosphere from the room. I know this sounds crazy, I really, really wish I was just crazy. But the room started to get cold and any breath I could have used to scream was gone. I don’t know if it was the nerves in my body lighting up with terror, but I could feel, bare with me…I could feel the cells in my body rising to the surface, just below my skin, pulling to that corner. My stomach was the worst, like the fear pulsating through my body condensed into the cells deep in my intestines, frozen, but buzzing around inside of me at the same time. Those cells too, were being sucked in or absorbed by the mass in the corner. It felt like I was lying on my bed but I wasn’t connected to it anymore. I was slowly being pulled into the corner without even moving. I shut my eyes and started thinking “warm” thoughts, another recommendation of Dr. Phelps. One that I won’t make fun of anymore because for whatever reason it worked. After I don’t know how long, I opened my eyes and looked back in the corner. Shadows still covered the room but the atmosphere was back, the warmth was back. How do you dream that? 

Besides, the buzzing in my stomach has gone down but this heavy nervousness hasn’t left since he showed up last night. I feel tired and weak. I can’t shake the feeling that something has been drained from me. Not blood or anything, I’ve checked for any mysterious cuts, but something has been taken, or pulled from me. Fear, I think. Somehow, this guy is consuming my fear. He’s growing from it as I weaken. And I wish I could stand up to him like I eventually did to the aliens; after a few months I grew tired of their slow, quirky antics and shouted at them to go away, and it worked. But this is so different. I don’t see light any more. Color is draining from the walls and the windows while shadows grow and deepen. Everything is so cold and I’m completely terrified. Just the way he wants me to be.

Aug 11, 2017

He touched me last night. I was drunk, but not drunk enough apparently. I was too scared to open my eyes, although I could feel the deep, empty stare of his pupils though my eyelids. His nose so close to mine, I could feel his wet, warm breath against my face. The pads of his fingertips brush across my cheeks. He outlined my lips with a fingernail. His cold fingers wrapped around my mouth as if he was keeping me quiet, or maybe he was holding me, feeling my cheekbones. I’ve peed the bed two nights in a row now.

Aug 12, 2017

I’m out of alcohol. I finished the wine days ago and I just put down the last drop of the whiskey bottle I got for Christmas last year; I hadn’t been saving it for anything, I just forgot it was there and found it in a twitchy wide-eyed search for something to put me down. I just can’t shake the thought from my mind, why didn’t he kill me last night? Or the night before? He’s here, every night I know it, so why hasn’t he killed me yet? Please just do it, put me out of my misery. I’m nauseous with fear all the time, it feels like moths are going wild with hunger inside of me, eating the lining of my stomach. 

Aug 13, 2017

I’m past the point of fear, I think. I mean, I’m always scared now, always shivering with paranoia, but this is the new normal, maybe. I eventually fell asleep last night, although I’m sure he was there in my closet, I could hear his nails tick-ticking against the door. I was able to muster a weak “fuck you” and rolled over to my other side, turning my back to him. Take me then. But he didn’t.

Aug 14, 2017 

I’m so tired. What I’ve considered a victorious sleep for the past few days is nothing more than 2 or 3 hours. Last night I think I got maybe two hours of sleep? Although it felt like I had only shut my eyes for two seconds before the early morning light woke me up again. He’s here with me, all the time now. I can’t see him but I can feel him right behind me, or just below the window outside of my bedroom, crouching. He watched me from my ceiling last night. The shadow that made his head in the corner of the room rose up and watched me, hovering in the air like that. I could see his eyes, the dark tunnels that were his pupils dug into me. I actually got up out of bed, I wouldn’t say I was hypnotized, but my eyes were locked with his, still floating in the corner of my room. I followed that pulsing pull that engulfed the room. I was ready for it to be over. It wasn’t until I was standing right in front of his headless body that I broke eye contact, but by the time I brought my eyes down to his torso, he was gone. I looked back at the ceiling for his head but it was gone too. Admitting this is hard, but I was sad to realize I was alone. I was ready for the sweet release of his bite. For this cat and mouse game to finally be over and I can finally rest. But the ceremony is not complete, I guess. 

I was originally going to get rid of these pages, back when I thought I was simply the witness to a murder, but I think this should be documented. When somebody finds this, or if someone finds this, it’ll explain what happened to me. I’m writing this now because I think something is going to happen to me. Hell, something is happening to me right now, and I’m not gonna survive it. I don’t want to survive it, if it means shivering in constant fear, forever waiting for this grotesque man to finish me off. I don’t want to live any longer with the image of his face in my mind. This needs to end. So, if anyone finds this, I’m sorry I gave up, but can you blame me? 

Aug 15 2017

I know what I need to do to end this. I should have done this a few days ago, saved myself from a few more nights of misery. I need to go to him. He needs to accept my offering to him, my acceptance of death. And then it will all be over. I know, a few days ago I thought I could fight this thing, but I’m not me anymore. I looked in the mirror today and really saw myself for the first time in the last week. I don’t know how it's possible for a person to physically change in just a few days, but I hardly recognized the empty eyes staring back at me. My skin is this sickly, almost transparent grey. I could see the all of the veins in my forehead, bulging out, pulsing. The bags under my eyes are a mesh of a yellow and purple splotches. My eyes are bloodshot, and the redness making my blue irises glow in some unholy way. They aren’t mine anymore though, my eyes. They’re his. I see the same emptiness in my pupils that he has. I sympathize with him, what have his eyes seen then? I’m going to him, tonight. That’s the only way, I know it. I’m gonna wait in the alley by Vine Street for him of course; the same place that I met him on that first night. Although I have a feeling he’ll already be there, waiting for me.